"Fall recall appears to be certain: Circus of scenarios hits a critical point" See this San Francisco Chronicle report. In other recall news and commentary, see: A.P. ; the Contra Costa Times (and see here and here); the Los Angeles Times; and the Sacramento Bee (and here).

"DeLay Earns Wealth of Influence" The Washington Post offers this report.

A little recall amusement Don't miss this California Insider post on what happened when the California Assembly Democrats discussing the recall and the budget left the intercom on.

Follow up on Woocher nomination issue Following up on earlier post, veteran California political commentator Tony Quinn wrote to me with the following observations:

I was quite taken by the discussion on how candidates will be nominated in the soon to be recall. Two thoughts: First, isn't there precedence in how candidates filed in the three 1995 legislative recall elections? The Secretary of State at the time must have set out a standard as those were 60 to 80 days elections as well. Second, a court let BT Collins run for the Assembly some years back even though he did not submit the requisite number of signatures for the office; and March Fong Eu was allowed on the ballot even thought she missed a deadline. It seems that the courts very liberally interpret the candidate qualification process.

When I asked Tony for more detail on these cases, he followed up with the following:

The three recalls involved Assembly members Paul Horcher (R-Diamond Bar), Doris Allen (R-Cypress) and Mike Machado (D-Stockton). All of them had helped keep Willie Brown or in Allen's case, the Dems in office when the Assembly was 41 GOP (1995). Horcher and Allen did so as Reps and were recalled. Machado beat the recall because he was a Dem voting for a Dem speaker. But in each case, adequate time was available for replacement candidates to appear on the ballot. Gary Miller replaced Horcher and Scott Baugh replaced Allen.

I agree that practice may be useful in construing the meaning of the statutes, and that the Secretary of State's longstanding interpretation may well be entitled to some deference. The time period does not seem to be much of an issue. The recall statutes are clear that it is 59 days. The larger question is the requisite number of signatures and how to deal with independent candidates. And the history may not shed too much light on that.
What would be best would be for Shelley to seek a declaratory judgment to get all of this squared away, as soon as possible, before any potential candidates have to jump through hoops to get on the ballot.

Anti-recall group goes to appeals court seeking TRO A.P. offers this report.

Plaintiffs oppose McCain lawyers' request to file 100 page brief rather than 75 page brief Among the reasons plaintiffs offer: "And while it is true that seven amicus briefs were filed in support of plaintiffs...it is undoubtedly also true that intervenor defendants will round up at least as many, if not more, amicus briefs in support of their position. Given the large number of interest groups dedicated solely to the 'cause' of campaign finance reform, we suspect this will not be a difficult task."

"Fla. Election Officials Push for Fine" A. P. offers this report.

"The wealth primary" USA Today offers this editorial.

State-by-state analysis of Bush fundraising The Reform Voter Project offers this report.

-- 
Rick Hasen
Professor of Law and William M. Rains Fellow
Loyola Law School
919 South Albany Street
Los Angeles, CA  90015-1211
(213)736-1466
(213)380-3769 - fax
rick.hasen@lls.edu
http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html
http://electionlaw.blogspot.com